Why James Cameron thinks the 1968 movie that changed his life is lacking in “emotional balls”
James Cameron might have pivoted from filming giant blue people to the singer of a song called ‘Blue’ in Billie Eilish, thanks to his 3D movie of her recent concert performances, but his obsession with those ten-feet-tall Na’vi people is seemingly never-ending.
After all, we are still just three Avatar movies into Cameron’s epic five movie series, the next of which is due in cinemas in 2029 with another to follow in 2031, and they still would appear to be bringing people into cinemas; last year’s third instalment, Fire and Ash, made a staggering $1.49billion at the box office, five times what it cost to make.
Whether or not these films are actually any good seems by the by, as Cameron is going to make them, and enough people seem to want to see them, if only to witness what kind of visual marvels he can produce on the big screen.
After all, he is probably the undisputed king of special effects, and much as Spielberg has done some memorable things, it’s Cameron who has consistently used emerging technology to push the envelope, first with The Abyss in 1989 and then to Oscar-winning effect in Terminator 2: Judgment Day two years later.
He also put together, thanks to a mix of special and practical effects, what was in 1997 the most expensive movie in history in the shape of Titanic, costing an eye-watering $200million but proving well worth that money and then some as it became one of the most successful films in history.
Not only did it bring in more than $2bn around the globe in ticket sales, but it also tied the record for the most Oscar nominations in history at 14, winning 11 of them, including ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’ and ‘Best Visual Effects’, so, perhaps unsurprisingly, given the kind of films he has gone on to make, Cameron was profoundly influenced by a sci-fi masterpiece from 1968, which he saw as a 14-year-old growing up in Canada.
Despite his love of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, however, he has spoken about how he feels the director should have put more “emotional balls” into his movie, although that didn’t stop him from trying to replicate the beauty of some scenes in the later Avatar films.
Cameron also mentioned how, although he knows that many cinema goers are watching the Avatar films solely for the special effects, he is trying to put as much into the plots as possible, adding, “The stuff that is not ‘wow’ is straight emotional drama. And that stuff is wow, too, because we’re going to a depth of character and a depth of storytelling that the first film didn’t have, and it’s all new environments and creatures. So we’re probably kind of overachieving, but the other thing is, people’s expectations go up.”
Kubrick’s movie was similar in scope and impact to many of Cameron’s most successful films, being nominated for four Oscars and making ten times its budget at the box office. The director employed effects that simply hadn’t been witnessed before on cinema screens at the time, and that still hold up today, influencing the likes of George Lucas in making Star Wars, Ridley Scott in making Alien and especially Christopher Nolan in making Interstellar.
It was also a hugely divisive film, with arguments still going on almost 60 years on about the film’s meaning and messages, between those who found it too meditative and dull and those who thought it was vital and forward-thinking, predicting the rise of artificial intelligence and the meshing of man and machines.
